A RAILROAD FROM NOWHERE TO NOWHERE

Two years after completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, Company
president William Van Horne faced another challenge. With the discovery of
the rich Silver
King ore deposit near Nelson, Americans were quick to invade the area. The
Columbia and Kootenay Rivers provided easy north-south transportation
corridors;
American railways advanced north to secure ore concentrates for the Spokane
smelters. With a few shrewd moves, Van Horne was able to counteract the
American pressures by gradually building up C.P.R. assets in this area. The
very first asset was the Columbia and Kootenay Railway from Nelson to
Sproat's
Landing which van Horne referred to as "the railroad from nowhere to
nowhere". This became the first segment of the southern trans-provincial
railway.

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The last spike on the C.P.R. was driven at Craigellachie on November 7,
1885. As the echoes of the hammering died away in the solitude of Eagle pass
that misty
morning, the country to the south remained still largely unexplored and
undeveloped. Within a few years, however, all this was to change.

The major local event instrumental in attracting the attention of Van Horne
to the Kootenay country was the discovery in late autumn of 1886 by Osmer
and
Winslow Hall of a rich silver deposit on the flanks of Toad Mountain, near
Nelson. Not too far away, on Kootenay Lake, the Bluebell mine was already
being
worked profitably. In 1889 several rich silver-lead deposits were staked in
the Ainsworth mining camp, directly across the lake. All these mineral
discoveries led to a
stampede of prospective miners and the inevitable speculators that followed
on their heels. American railway magnates like Daniel Corbin and James Hill
started
making plans to push northward.

There were several possible routes to get to the mineral-rich areas. From
the south, the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers could be followed. A good pack
trail existed
from Fort Colville to the present site of Castlegar, at which point it
crossed the Columbia to follow the Kootenay valley. The easiest route was
probably from
Revelstoke, downstream on the Columbia to Sproat's Landing. In 1888 Fred
Hume, with two partners, started scheduled service from Revelstoke to
Sproat's
Landing with the steamer "Despatch". This venture was soon expanded into the
Columbia and Kootenay Steam Navigation Company which quickly acquired
additional steamers in order to cope with the rapidly increasing demand,
especially after news of the fabulously rich strike on Red Mountain near
Rossland broke in 1890.

Van Horne's first move was to construct a railway in 1891 from Nelson to
Sproat's Landing, using the charter of the Columbia and Kootenay Railway.
This was to
transport mining freight to the C.K.S.N. steamers, hopefully to Revelstoke
and the C.P.R. mainline. The terminus on the Columbia was quickly moved to
Robson for
a variety of reasons, the strongest being a better location which was less
subject to flooding. This picture was soon complicated by Daniel Corbin
building a railroad
from Spokane to Northport and later (1893) to Nelson (the Nelson and Fort
Sheppard Railway); thus it was easier to ship ores to Spokane for smelting.
In 1896
Corbin built a short spur line (the Red Mountain Railway) to Rossland to
haul ore concentrates to his smelter at Northport. The same year, however,
an American
entrepreneur, Fritz Augustus Heinze opened a smelter at Trail to handle the
rich ores from nearby Rossland, as well as other areas such as the Slocan.
He also
applied for and was granted a charter to build a railway from Rossland to
Trail, and then to the Okanagan to tie in with C.P.R. lines. If no suitable
arrangement could
be worked out with the C.P.R., his charter allowed him to go all the way to
the coast. Work commenced in 1897 and the Columbia and Western Railway was
constructed as far as Robson West.

By this time C.P.R. had other irons in the fire. They realized that they
could not depend on the C.K.S.N. to show them favoritism at the expense of
other customers
so they concluded that the long term solution to controlling freight to and
from the Kootenay mines was to build a railway from their line at Lethbridge
to Kootenay
Lake via Crow's Nest Pass. This would also allow them to tap into the
extensive coal deposits of the western foothills and ship the coal to the
smelter at Trail. Two
years in construction, the line was completed in December of 1898.

To control freight transport on the waterways, C.P.R.
bought out the Columbia and Kootenay Steam Navigation
Co. in 1896, and they quickly added additional steamers
on both the Kootenay and Arrow Lakes runs. To
complete the picture, C.P.R. bought out Heinze in 1898,
thus acquiring the Trail smelter, the Columbia and
Western as constructed to Robson West, and the charter
enabling them to continue westward. They immediately
converted the narrow gauge portions of the C.&W. to
standard gauge and implemented a barging service
between Robson and Robson West which allowed them
to transfer entire trains across the river.

1898 was a pivotal year for the C.P.R. They were expanding simultaneously on
several fronts. To join the race for the promising mines of the Boundary
region, they
immediately tackled the formidable task of extending the C.&W. westward
along the precipitous shores of Lower Arrow Lake, climbing to a pass
connecting to the
Dog Creek valley. Working through the harsh winter of 1898-99 they were able
to reach Grand Forks in Sept. of 1899 and Midway by 1900. It is
inconceivable
that this stretch of railway could have been done to such a high standard
with such extensive and formidable rock retaining walls, culverts, and
trestles in such a short
time span. Thomas Shaunessey, who had by now replaced Van Horne as
President, expressed his great satisfaction with the high construction
standards during his
inspection trip. He was less impressed by the temporary switchbacks over
Bull Dog ridge; as his private coach derailed on the journey, he decided to
walk the rest of
the way. The switchbacks were replaced by the Bull Dog Tunnel in
1900.

The same year also saw a significant expansion in Hill's Great Northern
Railway network. He acquired controlling interest in Corbin's lines, thus
gaining direct access
to Rossland and Nelson. His narrow-gauge Kaslo and Slocan Railway was doing
a booming business in the heart of the Slocan mining district. Plans were
launched
to connect Bonner's Ferry with Kuskonook on the southern end of Kootenay
Lake.

Other things were happening in 1898. To decrease dependence on the Columbia
River- which created problems in the Narrows when water was too low in the
summer, or turned to ice in the winter- a line was constructed from Slocan
City to South Slocan. Via steamer service on Slocan Lake (which is too deep
to freeze
over), this line was connected to the Nakusp and Slocan Railway which had
been tapping the Sandon mines for several years in direct competition to
Hill's Kaslo
and Slocan Railway. And in the same year, the "Minto", which was to be a
local influence for over half a century, was launched at Nakusp.

To replace the inefficient barging system, plans were drawn up for the
construction of a railway bridge at Sproat's
Landing. The bridge, which incorporated a turnspan, was completed in 1902.
It produced far reaching changes. Robson lost its importance
as a railway depot, and a larger station house was built at Castlegar. The
main steamer dock was established at Robson West, where direct connections
with the trains could be made.

Competition gradually withered away. The ill-conceived Bedlington and
Nelson Railway proved to be draining business away from the Nelson and
Ft.Sheppard line and the loss of the terminal at Kuskonook to a fire in
1900 led to early phasing out of the line. The Kaslo and
Slocan Railway was destroyed by a forest fire in 1910. Only The Nelson and
Fort Sheppard Railway kept operating on a limited basis,
with passenger service to Spokane.

Van Horne's dream- shared by Shaughnessy- of a second trans-provincial
line close to the American border was fully realized when in 1916 Andrew
McCulloch's monumental engineering marvel, the Kettle Valley
Railroad was completed, linking the end of the Columbia & Western terminus
at Midway with the C.P.R. main-line at Hope. Van Horne did not live to see
its completion. He died in Montreal on September 11, 1915. Less than a
year later, Van Horne's old adversary, James Hill died,
on May 29, 1916. Two months later, on July 31, the first passenger train
left Vancouver on its inaugural run to Nelson. Van Horne's "railway from
nowhere to nowhere" was now linked to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.